


Of Blessings and Punishments

by ilien



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Kid Fic, M/M, No Beta, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-14
Updated: 2011-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-26 02:11:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/277468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilien/pseuds/ilien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My first memory is that of my father, looking at me with a funny uncertainty in his eyes and asking “What the fuck is that?!” I was too little to know he was referring to me, and now I try not to take it too personally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Blessings and Punishments

**Author's Note:**

> I just keep doing things I don’t do. First there was a deathfic, now here’s a kid!fic. It wrote itself, I swear: I woke up with that image of Cas bringing Dean a baby, and couldn’t stop writing until I was done with it. Now I’ve got a headache to end all headaches, but the story wants to be posted.
> 
> Also, my writing could really be better. I'm always grateful to anyone who feels like correcting my mistakes.

My first memory is that of my father, looking at me with a funny uncertainty in his eyes and asking “What the fuck is that?!” I was too little to know he was referring to me, and now I try not to take it too personally. Gentle hands that were holding me, however, patted my head, as if wanting to comfort me and he who was holding me said “This is our son, Dean”

Dad looked like he swallowed sour milk, or worse – some of Sam’s healthy breakfast shakes, not that I knew that at the moment. “The fuck, Cas,” he yelled, “We’ve never even... you know, and besides, you’re a guy, and – what the hell!”

“I am not “a guy”, Dean, I am an angel of the Lord. Only creatures of Earth connect sex with childbirth, if that is what you mean by “you know”. That is not the way it works for us.”

“I need a drink,” my father said and took a bottle of what Sam later called “bad whiskey” from the cabinet. The one who was holding me stopped him.

“You can consume alcohol later, when you make sure our son is safe,” he said.

“The fuck, Cas,” dad said again, “care to explain? I sure as hell never did anything to make an angel baby with you, how the fuck do you even know it’s mine?!” Dad was yelling and it was scaring me. I made an unhappy sound, and the huge hands hugged me closer.

“You’re scaring him, Dean,” he said.

Dad took a deep breath. “Okay. You can start explaining now and I’ll try not to yell at your child.”

“Our child,” he sounded a bit offended.

“Whatever.” Dean sighed, “Talk.”

“Usually,” he said, taking a sit at the end of an unmade bed and rearranging me on his lap, “angels do not have children. Like I said, we don’t usually conceive children with sex. Some of us – the most powerful ones – once were able to create children with mortal women, without our Father’s permission. That was a long time ago and never ended well.

“This child,” he continued, “is not breaking any of my Father’s laws. He is a gift, from my Father.”

“Hell of a gift,” Dad commented.

 _He_ hugged me again and sighed, “I have no time to explain to you, Dean, how the child is a blessing. You will realize it soon enough. I have to go now. Take care of him.”

And then he stood up and gave me to my father. Dad was stunned and terrified, he was holding me and I was suddenly very cold. “Do not be afraid,” he said, probably both to me and my father. I could see his eyes now, blue like ice and warm like the sun. He kissed my forehead. “I love you, son,” he whispered in a language my father does not know.

“Wait, Cas,” Dad yelled, still holding me in that uncomfortable position, “when are you coming back?!”

“Probably never,” his eyes were suddenly very sad and empty. “I am sorry.”

And then he was gone.

 

***

When Sam got over the shock (which I, again, try not to take personally), first thing he insisted on was to never, ever, ever be called “uncle Sam” or any variation of that. Yeah, that’s why he’s Sam.

And I’m Adam. Sam vetoed names “Bobby” and “John” right away, and, although Dad said something about Sam not having power of veto for Dad’s son’s name, he complied. Dad vetoed “James” and random names like “Billy” or “Mathew”, so they ended up with Adam. That seemed to sadden them, just a bit. Adam Jo Winchester. Just like that, Jo, not John or Joseph or whatever – imagine my surprise when I learned that it stood for a girl’s name.

 

***

Uncle Gabriel made no comments about names.

He showed up two days later, when Dad and Sam were having their first of many arguments over diapers (well, probably not really the first one, I was asleep most of the time), grabbed the bottle from Sam, the bag of diapers from Dad and yelled at them for mistreating his nephew. He didn’t answer their “What the fuck are you doing here?” and “How are you not dead?” He changed me, filled my bottle with something extremely delicious, put me to bed and forced both my dad and uncle outside to “talk”. I didn’t hear the talk, because I was happy and asleep.

And that was how my favorite uncle entered my life. I, as it turned out, had dozens, if not hundreds, of uncles. Some of them showed up (not all of them were thrown out by Dad or Sam), some sent presents (which Dad would carefully confiscate and send to Bobby, who was my grandfather or something – most of the times Bobby would not return them, claiming they were “dangerous.”) But only Sam and Gabriel were there almost all the time – and my father, of course.

Sam taught me to read, Dad – to ride a bike, and Uncle Gabriel – to fly. Sam insisted that I eat healthy food, Dad fed me with greasy hamburgers, and Uncle Gabriel brought sweets from all over the world. Sam insisted that I had to study well, Dad wanted me to play soccer, and Uncle Gabe would say “screw them all” and make me skip the lessons and the soccer for Disneyland or a trip to the jungle.

Of course, he wasn’t _all_ that perfect. He tried to start my flying lessons with giving me a broom and insisting you can’t fly without it. It took a lot of Sam’s whining for Uncle Gabe to finally admit that it has nothing to do with brooms. He put a bag of salty licorice... marmalade or whatever, not edible _at all_ in my lunch box. He threw me in the middle of Loch Lomond one day because he thought it was high time for me to learn to swim. I didn’t learn to swim but now I’m good at flying with wet wings. When we came home, me – wet and Gabriel – laughing his ass off, Dad yelled, very loudly. I caught a cold.

But overall, Uncle Gabriel is awesome.

 

***

We had a house, now. Actually, we had it almost from the very beginning. I remember that talk Sam and Dean had, just a couple of weeks after I was brought to them. They realized I was there to stay. And if someone would come to take me away, they would “kick their ass”.

Dad said, that he wasn’t about to let his son grow up the way they did. Wasn’t about to raise a soldier and had no need for that – the Apocalypse was over, and if anyone had any plans for Adam – they could go to hell.

I didn’t listen too carefully; Gabriel had come not long ago and left that amazing bottle. But they ended up deciding to rent us a house in some nice little town. Sam mocked Dad for being such a girl, but Dad didn’t take it to heart.

We had a house. I got my own room full of toys for all ages – Dad wasn’t sure what I needed at the time, so he just bought everything he liked, of Sam liked, or I looked at more than once. My nursery was a disaster.

Uncle Gabriel didn’t really live with us – he just appeared out of nowhere whenever he felt like it, and disappeared again when he, supposedly, got bored. Or had “things to do”.

His other brothers weren’t any better, showing up and disappearing as they please. Bringing gifts, sweets and weird stuff, and lecturing Dad on how to raise kids. Not that Dad believed any of them had a slightest idea about raising kids.

 

***

I missed _him_. It’s a weird feeling – missing someone you don’t really know. But I remembered his eyes, and his hands, and his smile, and missed him all the time.

Once a classmate, that also lived next door, asked me why we didn’t go to church – his parents took him there every Sunday. I didn’t know, so I asked Uncle Gabriel. By some reason I thought that asking Dad or even Sam would be a bad idea.

“God isn’t really fond of churches, kiddo,” he answered, “despite what people think. You know, He can hear everyone who prays to Him, and everyone who takes His name in vain – that’s why it’s bad to do that. And can you imagine how annoying _that_ is? When millions of people talk to him all the time?” I suppose I could. Probably.

“Anyway,” Gabriel added, after a pause, “Church is a stupid thing. Now people not only pray to Him when they need something from Him, but also schedule to go to a place, from which, supposedly, He hears them better, and pray with no specific reason!”

It made sense, but I just had to ask, “Did He tell you that?”

Uncle Gabe laughed. “Of course not, kiddo. But I’m sure that’s how he feels.”

Suddenly, he was very serious, “You know, kiddo, He hears everyone, in a church or not. He just doesn’t listen, most of the time. But I have reasons to believe that if _you_ pray – He will.”

He grinned again and vanished, just to annoy me, because he knew I hated when he did that.

After that talk with Gabriel I started praying. I asked God to bring _him_ back. I asked Him to let me see my other Dad again, at least one more time, because I really, really missed him. Nothing happened.

 

***

The day I asked where’s my Mommy (I was around five, and deep inside I always knew I had no mommy at all, but other kids kept asking), Sam had The Talk with me. Or, at least, tried to have The Talk. He explained, that, although many kids have moms and dads, I don’t have a mom and never had one. I have a Dad. And maybe one more Dad, somewhere. And my other Dad is an angel, and it’s not because he died and went to Heaven, like Suzie’s mom, but because he’d always been an angel. And that’s why I’m special.

At that, Uncle Gabe appeared out of nowhere, gave me a lollipop and told Sam to shut up. Then he told me, that yeah, right, I don’t have a mom and I’m big enough to understand it was a stupid question to begin with, then he told me (and Sam and Dad, who were still there), that I’ll learn everything I need to know when I’m old enough. And then he promised to teach me to fly.

 

***

I am a nephilim. That means – I’m not entirely human. I look like a human boy, of course, for those who don’t know me, but I have lots of things that aren’t really human, not even close. My memory is one of those things. I heard that human children don’t remember first days of their lives, or even first years. I do. I have a lot of memories of being tiny and helpless, and of my dad and uncle swearing and yelling at each other about whose turn it is to change the diapers. They only stopped swearing when they realized I understand everything, and that was not before I learned to talk.

I understood everything that was said around me since I was a baby, but I had to learn to speak, like everyone else. I now speak lots of languages (Sam tried to count once, but found out that I speak more than he can name), but I’m horrible at math – had to learn it all on my own, like every other classmate. I can fly, but it turned out that I’m quite clumsy when it comes to helping Dad with the car or Sam with dinner. Uncle Gabriel said I could kill any monster “with my brain”, but I was afraid of the dark till I was no less than twelve. Quite a funny mixture of human and angelic, if you ask me.

Gabriel was right – I was learning new things about myself as I was growing up. No one had to explain it to me, unlike human stuff like dating girls or driving a car – I would just wake up one day to find out that I knew something entirely new about myself. Like, what a “vessel” is and how I am my own vessel, which is quite unusual. Or how what Dad thought of as “flying” were several different things, and most of the times I didn’t need to use the wings to fly – and the experience of leaving my vessel to take my true form (“It’s not exactly a true form for you, kiddo,” Gabriel said, “both of your forms are true”) was impossible to put in words, and Dad was better off not hearing about it too much, though, of course, he knew.

There were lots of things I could not discuss with Dad and Sam. Dad, at the mentions of my “angel mojo”, as he called it, would put on that fake-smile, that scared the hell out of me – yeah, he was doing his best not to show me that those things made him feel uneasy, but he was a crappy liar: it freaked him out and made him think that someday I’d leave him, just like _he_ did. Sam, on the other hand, would get curious and ask question after question after question, until we both ran out of words – he for the questions and me for the answers. It upset us both, so we made a deal not to talk too much about it.

Uncle Gabriel didn’t need words to answer my own questions, but he wasn’t fond of these discussions, either. He would usually say that there’s nothing bad about wanting to know more, but I’d learn everything in my own time, and would tell me not to rush it. “Take your time being a kid, kid,” he would say, “not knowing everything isn’t as bad as you think.”

I was sure that if _he_ was here, I could probably talk to him.

 

***

My pre-school teacher, who was a bit crazy about religion, tried to teach us how to pray. “Our Father, who art in Heaven,” she began, and I burst out laughing. She was mad like nobody’s business, called my Dad to school, yelled something about disrespect and blasphemy and things like that, while Dad was making a serious face and Uncle Gabriel (I heard that!) was laughing his ass off, as always, just outside the school building.

When the teacher was done yelling and we left school (Dad promised to punish me accordingly, and kept the serious face – so fake-serious, that I was pretty sure that the “punishment” would consist of a lot of pie), I asked Uncle Gabriel, who was still sobbing with laughter on Sam’s shoulder: “How many fathers do I have, anyway?”

“One,” said Sam,

“Two,” said Dad at the same time,

“Three, I suppose,” said Uncle Gabe and grinned, “or four.”

“Fucker,” Dad mouthed – he thought I wouldn’t notice,

“Right back atcha,” Gabriel grinned, “Count for yourself, dumbass. Dad – my Dad – created him. You and Cas are, officially, his parents. But you know,” he grinned again, “Cas hasn’t got blue eyes, not really. He hasn’t got any eyes at all, not in human sense. Sooo... That makes Jimmy Daddy Number Four.”

I remember Jimmy. He came to visit a couple of months after Dad and Sam rented the house. He had those blue eyes, and huge hands, when he held me and smiled at me, but it wasn’t _him_ , so I, little as I was, cried from disappointment... Jimmy said something about wanting to make sure we’re all fine, said he knew nothing about Castiel and left, after saying “I’m sorry,” for what looked like a dozen times.

I was crying and crying, and Dad didn’t cry – not really.

After that, Jimmy was sending presents for me, on Christmas and my birthday, and he was probably the only uncle (except for Sam and Gabriel, of course) whose presents weren’t sent to Bobby right away. His daughter, Claire, visited us sometimes, took me for an ice cream when I was old enough, and said “hi” from her Dad. “He feels guilty, you know,” she said once, “he would fix it if he could.”

I wasn’t sure at the time, what Jimmy had to be guilty about, or what he would want to fix. I left it at that. Claire was one of a very few humans that knew who I really was, from the first time she saw me – it had to do with her being Castiel’s vessel when she was a kid. She could even see my wings, which made Dad green with envy. She came to see me rather often, even spent her holidays with us once. Jimmy never showed up again.

 

***

First time someone noticed Sam and Dad weren’t growing old, they asked Dad if he had a portrait in his attic. I was something like ten. Sam explained the reference and I went to read the book. Then checked the attic, just for a case.

They questioned Gabriel after that. Well, “questioned” is too big a word, actually, Dad was yelling, and Sam was making puppy-eyes, and Gabriel was struggling not to laugh, duh.

“What exactly do you object against, Dean?” Uncle Gabriel asked at last, when Dad finally finished his speech on angels, dicks, bl _-khm-_ oomy pagan gods and Christian saints, “You would really rather grow old and die?”

“I’d rather _not_ take part in Heaven’s plans, for a change, thank you!”

“What makes you think it’s some part of a plan?”

“What else can it be?! Angels don’t make people immortal just because they’re nice guys, it’s just not how it works!”

“No, it’s not,” Gabriel agreed, “But what if it’s not angels? What if it’s Dad?”

“Like it makes anything better!”

“It does, Dean, believe me, it does. You like this life, you like this planet. That’s one way of giving you a couple of years here.”

“And what’s the catch?”

Gabriel shrugged, “Try to enjoy it while it lasts. Might not last forever.” He didn’t explain it any further.

Two weeks later, after several quiet conversations with Sam in the kitchen (neither of them was yelling, can you believe that?), while I was pretending to be asleep (“Yes, Sammy, I don’t want my son to live on the road either, but it’s safer that way. We won’t do it again until someone notices,”) Dad packed our stuff and moved us to another state. Just to be on the safe side. Sam encouraged me to stay in touch with my old friends, and I kept texting them. Claire even took me to see them once, but I didn’t see what they were fuzzing about – I could always find new friends, and the new house was amazing.

Of course I was bullied a bit in my new school, but I didn’t even have to use my “angel mojo” to show them that I’m the wrong person to mess with. Later they would find snakes and frogs in their lockers, and I had a perfect alibi for each and every case. I swear I didn’t do it. No one bothered to ask my uncle about his own alibi, though.

 

***

I had lots of friends, at school and otherwise, and it wasn’t always easy – to be around people all the time and hide what I am. Dad taught me how to fight – not because I couldn’t protect myself without it, but simply so that I wouldn’t be tempted to use “the mojo”.

I slipped once – threw a bully into the wall. The fucker was insulting one of my friends and was about to hit him – I just couldn’t help myself. Had to heal the bastard’s head wound right away, or he would have died. Dad yelled, Sam looked disapprovingly, and Uncle Gabriel just said “You know it was not the right thing to do, right, kiddo?”, and it made me feel like shit.

But at least, they didn’t make me apologize.

That was, actually, exactly how they always dealt with my misadventures. Dad yelled, then made pancakes to apologize. Sam looked at me with that special looked that meant “you fucked up, happy now?”, and Gabriel just made me feel like shit with a couple of words. Could skip the yelling and the looks, really. Not that any of us would ever say that to Sam and Dad.

 

***

When _he_ appeared, together with Uncle Gabriel, out of nowhere, I was fourteen and just came home from a party. Tipsy a bit, but it’s not like anyone had to know that.

Dad punched him, hard, in the face. Then looked at his hand in surprise – even I knew, that punching an angel is just as painful as punching a wall, maybe worse. Dad didn’t look like he was all that hurt.

Castiel looked like he’d been punched. And, probably, like he was expecting a punch from me, too. I hugged him instead, deciding to save the punch for later. After we, maybe, talk, or something. Okay, so I guess I was a bit more drunk than I thought, because it’s not like I was much into hugging after I was twelve.

“It was my punishment,” he said, at last, when Dad stopped yelling, “for... a mistake I’d made.”

Dad looked like he was about to punch him again, when Gabriel explained, “The absence, Dean-o, Castiel’s absence, not the kid!”

“I... do deserve your anger, Dean. It was, actually, my fault.”

“Your birth, Adam,” he smiled at me, “was a blessing. A gift, both for me and Dean, from my Father, for everything we’d sacrificed. You are a part of my Grace and his soul, and you are the only nephilim born into this world in the last two thousand years. But at the same time with this gift, I was given my punishment.”

“Punishment – for what?” Dad asked.

“Claire,” Gabriel said, as if it explained anything. And Dad looked like it did.

“When I needed a vessel,” Castiel said to me, “Jimmy wasn’t my only choice. There was another person who was praying and had it in her blood. She was twenty-one, an orphan with no family... And not a very good life, to put it mildly. She would not lose much, if anything, saying “yes” to me. But I... Was not considering her life or Jimmy’s, my only concern was to pick the most capable vessel. And I picked Jimmy, leaving his daughter without a father.”

“So,” Gabriel continued when she saw Castiel wasn’t going to speak again, “Daddy said we angels needed a lesson on how to treat human vessels. And their families, obviously. His first idea, actually, was to make Castiel leave Jimmy for good and to forbid Cas to ever take a vessel again.” Dad looked horrified, “but I suggested another solution.”

“Wait a minute, _you_?! It was all _your_ idea?!” Now Sam was mad, too.

“Yeeah, the idea was mine. I said – Cas didn’t take Jimmy’s _life on Earth_ , not really – so why would we take his? Cas left Jimmy’s child without a father. So let him see what it’s like, to see your own child grow without you.”

Sam and Dad were angry beyond words. I, somehow, wasn’t. I understood the idea – the ethics was not human, far from it, but neither of us is human, right?

“So... God made me, and made sure I don’t grow up deprived of anything other than the missing parent?” I smiled, “that’s logical.”

“Logical?!” here Dad was, yelling again, “How is leaving a child without a father “logical”? How is leaving us here to wonder what happened for fourteen fucking years is “logical”? How is Gabriel lying to us all this time “logical”?”

“Gabriel had to lie, or he wouldn’t be allowed here,” Castiel explained.

“...And since it was all my idea, Dad told me to look after him, just for a case. Provided I keep the secret.”

“So, that’s why you stayed?” Sam asked, not a little hurt.

“Nooo, idiot. I stayed because I liked it here. And even the fact that Daddy, for once, approved, couldn’t spoil the fun.”

“Why the secrecy, anyway?” I asked, “why not tell Dad that after a certain amount of time you’d be allowed back? He was blaming you, all the time, it’s not fair.”

Castiel shrugged, “I did not help Jimmy to explain himself to Amelia. I could do that much, but I never bothered. And Dean had all the right to blame me, it _was_ my fault.”

I understood, really. Dad didn’t. He was angry – at Castiel for feeling guilty (which didn’t help, seriously), at Gabriel for not saying a word, God for “being a dick”, and even at me for understanding it and not sharing his rage. Also, later I got my share of his rage for coming home drunk.

Gabriel also explained that the vessel Castiel was wearing now was not Jimmy. It looked exactly like Jimmy fifteen years ago, but Jimmy had his own life with his family, and was, for a change, happy. The vessel was made, as an exception, for Castiel personally, and did not contain a human soul. Because of that, it was weaker, incapable of serious fighting, but to live on Earth it was enough.

It turned out Castiel’s punishment was also the reason Sam and Dad weren’t getting old. The punishment was Castiel’s and his only, so Dean didn’t have to grow old waiting for his kid’s other parent to show up, “like a good little princess,” Gabriel grinned. So, he didn’t age a day – so that they could start where they left off. Sam got it as bonus for being part of this messed up family.

And starting where they left off they did. Well, mostly. All the yelling considering.


End file.
